Here goes! I’m publishing episode one of my serialized novel The Undergrounders on Sunday.
It’ll go live on my personal Substack for paying subscribers. I wanted to give you a little excerpt in case you wanted to check it out. Go over and subscribe, if you’d like to read the whole episode on Sunday. (It’s about 10,000 words.)
I’ll be publishing a second excerpt on that Substack tomorrow, so go ahead and subscribe for free if you’d like to get that.
About The Undergrounders.
The Undergrounders is a modern day Robin Hood retelling, set in Las Vegas.
In the first episode: When Rob Huntington comes home to Las Vegas from Harvard to bury his father, he learns a few things. He’s lost his legacy. His father had a secret fiancé—and she’s pregnant. And Mattie Fitzwalter, the girl he’s loved his whole life, has slept with his worst enemy.
Excerpt from The Undergrounders episode one.
Rob straightened, stretching to his full six feet, and scanned the huge room, looking for the only person he really wanted to see. The only person who could help him make sense of any of this.
He hadn’t seen Mattie outside of a computer for two years and suddenly that felt like two lifetimes. He’d talked to her just before boarding the airplane. Why hadn’t she come to the airport?
He needed her. He wasn’t going to be able to do this without her.
“Rob, I don’t know what to say. I’m just so sorry.”
He looked down at Paolo Lopez. He’d worked in maintenance since shortly after Rob’s mother died. Rob wanted to smile sadly and nod and thank him for thinking of his father. He couldn’t manage it.
Instead, he grasped for the only life line that might save him from drowning in Ballroom A. “Have you seen Mattie?”
Paolo shook his head. He put an arm around a woman standing at his side. “My wife, Maria. She came to pay her respects.”
She said something in rapid-fire Spanish and Paolo started to translate, but Rob put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I really need to find Mattie. Thank you for being here.”
He stood tall again, but he wasn’t tall enough to see over the sea of people filling the ballroom.
“Robert?”
Where was she?
Philip Mack put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “Robert. I need you to come with me.”
Rob pulled back, his fight or flight instinct kicking in. Flight, it screamed. Get the fuck out of here. “Where’s Mattie? I need her.”
Philip sighed, deep, then turned away from Rob and waved someone over. His nephew. Some automatic file in Rob’s mind, working on auto drive, spit out a memory of Jack telling him that Guy Perdue had been made head of security sometime last year.
“Guy,” Philip said. “Have you seen Matilda?”
Guy met Rob’s eyes with something that felt enough like a challenge to flip the fight-or-flight switch and send out a shot of adrenaline.
“She couldn’t make it tonight.”
A startled bark of laughter escaped Rob before he could stop it. There was no chance Mattie would let him do this alone. None.
Something crossed Guy’s face—like he’d seen, or maybe smelled, something that disgusted him
“Seriously,” Rob said. “Where is Mattie?”
“She had other obligations.”
There was something in the way Guy talked about Mattie and her obligations that made Rob’s skin crawl. “I need some air.”
“You can’t leave,” Philip said.
He had to. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He left before Philip or Guy or anyone else could try to stop him. Going back through the casino was out of the question. There were even more people there. Rob turned to the left, skirting the table games and slot machines, then up a long, familiar hallway.
He took a flight of stairs , two more hallways, and finally went through a set of glass double doors. The fresh-baked desert air hit him and he gasped in a hard, deep breath like he wasn’t sure when he’d get another one.
A small swimming pool shimmered in front of him. Its million tiny blue tiles glittered like jewels. His father kept it perfectly maintained for employees, but it was mostly only him and Mattie that used it.
He kicked off his Nikes and reached down to pull off his socks and roll up his track pants. He’d go home and change before he went back into the casino. Dressing properly might make it easier to face the people in Ballroom A.
Before he could sit down and put his feet into the water, a wave of guilt washed over him. All those people, waiting to tell him how sorry they were that his father was gone, and he couldn’t face them.
He couldn’t face what on his own terms meant.
This time he didn’t bother trying to hold back the hard bubble that burst in his chest, although there were still no tears.
How could his father be gone? It was like trying to wrap his head around the idea that the sun had decided one day that it was done shining.
The door behind him opened with a soft whoosh and a burst of refrigerated air. Rob kept his back turned, trying to pull it together before he had to face Philip telling him to go back to the ballroom.
“I just need a minute,” he said. “Please.”
A hand slipped into his and Mattie was there.
She pressed against his right side, her forehead on his shoulder. She didn’t say she was sorry. She didn’t have to say anything. He kept her hand and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer.
Her hair smelled like apples. It fell forward and covered her face as she shifted to press her cheek against his chest.
She held onto his T-shirt at the small of his back, her fingers digging into his skin. She whispered something, and it took a minute for him to work out what it was.
You’re home, Robin. You’re home.
Tears finally fell.